The Hardware of the Brain
       

You might suddenly be in the middle
of recalling it, the word you can't remember,
a word to finish the end of a sentence
in an ordinary conversation and you don't
know where it could have disappeared
so quickly around a corner when you
turned your head, into some dark tunnel
past the bright buttons waiting to be pushed,
the cold steel drawers lined up and labeled so carefully,
lost among the glittering ancestors of thought
pulsing their messages over and over like water
through pipes down the long roads, pushing through,
trying to find its way past the tractor trailers
and the taxis, past the revolving cement trucks
and the tilt top cabs. A bird is flying
through the snowstorm. The snow is thick and soft,

and the bird searches for its own tree in the forest.
The leaves are gone. It is so cold here.
Behind each door there is a smaller door and then
an even smaller one. A pair of feet runs
through the doors. A cat pushes itself over
the fence and leaps through a window.
The window closes. Look in the closet.
Look in the drawer. Look under the bed. No one
can find it. We are all calling. Time to come,

come now. Dinner is waiting. The candle is in
the window. An empty plate waits on the table
next to the folded napkin and glass of milk.
A message is about to be put in an envelope.
Wires are intertwining, about to connect
to longer wires. The fingers touch the keys.
The keys touch the wings. The bright wings
are flapping upward. Wheels are revolving.
Sparks are flying. In this cold and brittle landscape,
someone is trying to start a fire.

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Copyright © 2018 Geraldine Connolly All rights reserved
from Aileron
Terrapin Books
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission